Bird Brain

Source: Cantilever/Architect

‘Bird Brain’

UK animation production company Cantilever Media, renowned for 2022’s The Amazing Maurice, has secured £500,000 investment from Creative UK’s Creative Growth Finance (CGF).

Cantilever will use the funding to expand its UK-Ireland distribution arm, Kazoo Films, which was launched in 2024 and specialises in animated features for kids and families.

Kazoo plans to release Cantilever productions, including Benoit Godbout’s Unstable, in production for a 2027 release, and Dana Dorian’s Bird Brain, budgeted at $15m.

CGF is a specialist investment fund, administered by Creative UK, that offers debt finance for small and medium-sized enterprises in the creative sectors of up to £500,000 initially, with the option of further finance after two years of the loan term.

Previous film company recipients of the fund include Mike Elliott’s London and Yorkshire-based Emu Films in 2021. 

Creative UK is now headed up by Emily Cloke, a former senior civil servant in the UK government’s department of business and trade. She took over from chief executive Caroline Norbury. 

Cantilever expansion

Bird Brain is the first animated feature to be sold through Cantilever’s joint venture sales agency with the UK’s Architect Global. It will also be the first co-production with UK-India VFX giant DNEG’s animation firm ReDefine through a Cantilever-ReDefine slate partnership.

Kazoo will also release films from a three-film co-production deal between Cantilever, Los Angeles-based Viva Pictures Distribution and HarperCollins Productions to adapt HarperCollins IP into comedy-oriented animation features.

Cantilever’s production slate includes Bollywoof, Wed Wabbit and the sequel to The Amazing Maurice.

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